MacArthur Park

Just another Saturday afternoon in the park with Hookers, Pushers, Paleteros, and bible bangers.

The park, built in the 1880's and once referred to as the Champs-Elysees of Los Angeles is; hold onto your crack pipes, a shit hole. I don't ever remember a time when the park was not synonymous with violence, drugs, prostitution and fake I.D's. In fact, during the construction of the Red Line i remembering hearing rumors that once the lake was drained thousands of weapons were found at the bottom. Of course those are rumors as i can only believe are the fabled tales of this shitpile actually being like upper east side Manhattan in the 1920's. I tried to find pictures of this majestic park in its heyday and found bupkis! I remember Bukowski talking about playing Chess in the park; or maybe that was Fante? i forget...but they never mentioned the park being anything other than a place for vagrants to gather and nap.


Still, i love L.A. and moreover, i LOVE LANGERS! Langers is a deli in the heart of the MacArthur park area. It closes at 4pm, and you can imagine why. The area is crowded with Latin markets selling all kinds of chachki. There is a Dr.Pacheco's herbal abortion clinic, an oddly lone Chinese restaurant, and a pawn shop that NEVER has any wares in it. But the true gems, are the photo studios. Any event; prom, birthdays, pregnancy, just for sluts and giggles... these studios can capture all your precious moments! Shit, i was young once and i totally remember that in Jr. High it was the latest rage to get a Glamour Shot of yourself, with big fluffy hair, in a foggy haze poppin' the collar of your acid washed jean jacket, but this may be going too far...

(whatever, whatever she do what she wants, she's grown!)

I wonder if MacArthur Park will ever be restored to its mythical origins? Sadly, while i would love to take a romantic after lunch stroll in the park without being offered crack, an ID or a blowjob; i don't want to see yet another part of Los Angeles become gentrified. Perhaps i am being too hasty in calling the park a shitpile. I can remember in my childhood my mother bringing me to MacArthur Park to ride the Swan paddle boats. Sure it was a creep show back then too, but i had fun. MacArthur Park may not be or very well may have never been Champs-Elysees but its a part of the Los Angeles landscape and shit hole or not it's still a swell place to visit.

Selma-Melt & Corn-Kitties

I am still working on my masterpiece about ethics and morality. In the meantime, i thought it would be genial to throw a big-ups to fake meats by showcasing their awesomeness. I decided to break it down into 3 categories: Price, Taste, and Likeness to Meat.

Corn-Kitties

(Corn-Kitties cuz they ain't Dogs)

At 150 calories each these seem too good to be true. However, the taste and texture are just like the real thing. They are negligibly smaller than their corn-dog counterparts, but not enough to lose any sleep over. Morning Star Products can be pricey, hovering around 5 dollars, but you can find deals. Food For Less Carries the product as does Trader Joe's and most other department-supermarket-stores do as well. Price: moderate. Taste: outstanding, amazing, spectacular. Likeness to meat: dead on.

Selma-Melt

(As in Patty and Selma? This is the other melt)

I tried the Garden Burger Grillers and that fake meat patty was just terrible. Too awful to ever buy again, much less take pictures of and review. Meat is meat and nothing will ever taste exactly like a juicy medium rare steak except a juicy medium rare steak. This faux meat is not comparable in texture, nor taste to the real thing but it does not taste half bad. Its a great source of protein, its low in calories;130, and it's definitely a team player. Here I toasted some onion buns, placed a mixture of jalapeno jack and and chedderella cheese on each half. Placed the slice of fake meat on one half and a combo of caramelized onions and jalapenos on the other. (Mr. M added some left over chili to his Selma-melt) It tasted GREAT. Price: moderate. Taste: Yummers , but its no double-double animal style. Likeness to meat: not by a long shot.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes

Mr. M introduced me to 'Watchmen', written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons about a year ago after reading an Entertainment Weekly review placing it #13 on the top 100 list of best books in the last 25 years. Of course lists are subjective and rankings are arbitrary, but this wonderful piece of literature lives up to the hype. However, i cant say the movie has. Not to say that the movie was terrible; because i can think of 5 movies (Brazil, Teeth, Cannibal Holocaust, Franken-Hooker, and Match Point), that were real shit-fests. The movie is in fact very entertaining.

Around the water cooler on Monday (that's just an expression, there are no water cooler's in HELL) i heard simpletons, cretins and meat heads alike complaining that the movie was weak. On the contrary, Mr. M and i left the theatre on Sunday feeling happy that the movie was not a complete bastardization of the novel. Unfortunately, this is not a made for big screen story. The novel's subtlety, sarcastic irony, and political commentary are lost in its big budget celluloid counterpart. This is not to say that we loved the movie, we liked it, we were happy with it, disappointed at times and relieved at others.

It's clear to me that Director Zack Snyder is truly a fan of the 80's "comic" and that he tried to make the movie as true to the novel as Hollywood would allow him to. 'Watchmen' has a great soundtrack and the R-rating promises Gorey violence, lots of full frontal blue nudity, and sexy results. over all i give the movie a solid B. I give the novel an A+

NOTE: remember when you first watched a colorized version of 'It's a wonderful life' and felt that the color looked unnatural and weird and that maybe the original Black and White version was better? I do.

Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia

(background on the musing below. i wrote it about 2 years ago. i was contemplating quiting my job for another job. i had taken a leave of absence and was commuting to Hermosa Beach to tryout the other job. it was a shitty job and i resolved to return to HELL. the story of Joan reminded me of this one. Also, the title means fear of something man-made, and stupid, specifically the sequence 666)

After dancing with depressions for a couple of weeks my sore, blistered feet have called it quits. I am filled with a sense of panic, but rather odd happiness, and hope. That blister of uncertainty finally burst; bringing much anticipated relief and leaving a scar that while healing will remind me of my journey.
Four long and tiresome train rides later, I sat dozing off, clutching my stuff in my lap when a handsome tall black man with a nice neat Afro wearing a simple cross around his neck, holding a red bag, and a loose fitting button up shirt which depicted Jesus ascending to heaven with angels and clouds framing him, stood up in the quiet overstuffed cabin filled with dejected and tired workers going home. With a bible butterflied open in one hand and the other awkwardly holding the rail above his head, he began to talk about GOD. The sun was setting and filled the compartment with a warm orange light. Everyone ignored that invisible man. I however, could not take my eyes off of him. His voice was strong and sweet. He looked nervous, as he searched the cramped compartment for a face, a gaze, a soul to connect with. He caught my smile and smiled back. He spoke proudly of GOD for about 3 minutes and then sat down. I said "thank you" under my breath. i thought, “Thank you” for doing and saying what was in your heart, for sharing for taking a risk for not being a humanoid.
At my stop I rose to exit and he got up and walked toward me. He told me that GOD loved me very much and that GOD knew that I in-turn loved him. He continued to say that I was a very blessed woman. That I had a great deal of courage and strength and that I would be very happy in life. I thanked him again and he smiled and his smile filled my whole body with warmth that washed away the panic that consumed me the past weeks. As we shared that brief exchange, people looked at me as if my voice, my response to the invisible “crazy-Jesus” man, that they all collectively did not want to see, was a disturbance. He let me exit before him. Nobody looked at him. But he was so beautiful I could not understand how he was so invisible. When I turned around again to look back one last time, he was gone. He vanished. i began to wonder if in my tired, depressed, fragile mental state i had imagined him? Or maybe he some amalgam that GOD sent to my mind to project on my eyes to remind me that everything in my troubled life would be okay? I imagine death will visit me in a similar manner. Singling me out of a crowd, and calmly ushering me off the train to the next realm. I certainly hope so.

Joan Smith

In HELL i talk to all kinds of yahoos and simple jacks, but every once in a long while there is a Joan Smith. She called on Wednesday. She was 94 years old and lived alone in a trailer. Her husband died 20 years ago. She wrote books of poetry that she published herself at the local print shop; zippy copy. She published 4 books and she quilted. She talked about all her stuff cluttered in her small trailer, and how she had outlived everyone, even some of her own children. She was sad and lonely and longed for death but resolved that GOD had a plan for her. I told her that maybe he wanted her to write another book. She said something about her husband being a builder and how he was building their home in heaven. That's why he went up first, to get things ready for her. It was sweet how she wanted to believe despite how afraid she was. Who knows, maybe when she dies she will be dreaming of her husband welcoming her home and she will never wake up from that dream and it will all have come true. i really hope so. i hope she writes one more book. thank you Joan. :-)

My BFF 4Ever

For as long as i can remember he has always been there for me with his warm fuzzy embrace. i grew wiser, saw the world under his guidance and tutelage. when i was sad, bored, lonely, angry... he was there to bring a smile to my face. he never cared what i looked like, that i put on some weight, or that i forgot to put pants on. Unconditional. So one can only imagine my outrage when i heard of the meddlesome government's plan to tear asunder my peaceful home by forcing me to get a digital converter for my oldest friend?!?

Mr. M and i went to Target on Saturday to pick up my nifty sansonic (the bastard child of Panasonic and Sanyo), that with the coupon cost us 5 bucks. you should see this piece of work. and if you have an old set like i do, you have. its ridiculous. Hundreds of channels? better picture? Easy hook up? My ass! it took me an hour to connect the sansonic up to my already awesome entertainment system that consists of a VCR, DVD player and my TV. i got the converter plugged in, but now i cant get the VCR or the DVD player to work! I still only have the same channel options, and as for better picture, try no picture. Now i have to go out and get a special antenna!?

its not such a big deal i suppose. its technology- the wave of the future. i am not all together clear as to why we have to go to a digital signal, it seemed to me that everything was working just fine. i guess i am like my grandparents who thought the typewriter was just fine and did not understand why computers were such hot shit. Maybe i will just break down and FINALLY get cable? huh, there's a thought. Hold fast BFF, we just might have HBO soon. AND Showtime!

Dear Diary

Recently i have been going through my old diaries because i am trying to find something in them to convince myself that they are worth saving. Mostly its a bunch of sad, waaaa-my-life-is-so-hard-you-don't-understand me, bullshit. Some of it is reflective but most of it is pathetic. i did however stumble upon this deliciously ironic little gem: [12/11/2001] 'I wish that these pages and words would erase themselves so that no one could ever see my thoughts and feelings, so that nobody could judge me or laugh at my turmoil.' A couple of things come to mind. 1.) i wrote that in 2001!? it reads like the musing of an 8th grader, 2.) why write it down if i don't want these things to be read? and Finally HOW ridiculous is it that seven years later i will decide to write shit down in a medium that explicitly opens me up to that laughter, judgment and ridicule from others; perfect strangers even, that i so desperately wanted to avoid?

Lent Watch 2008: i was irritable today, i thought that maybe i was going through alcohol withdrawals then i realized that i was just menstrual. I entertained briefly the idea of buying near-beer but that would be a waste of money and as Mr. M pointed out, we would look, never mind feel stupid purchasing fake beer.

Just for shits and giggles i researched AA online and found that its tenets to sober living are deeply flawed. A bulk of the steps rely on one turning to GOD. Which in it of itself is great if you are a Christian. But what if you are not?

Steps 1 and 2 seem like some good shit you want to do in general if you have lost control of your life. Step 3 makes an attempt to elaborate on "GOD" {as one understands him to be(insert personal faith in here)}, but from there on out it's clearly a Christian endeavour. i am not dismissing the power and potential for this program to be successful. I think that steps 8 thru 10 are pretty awesome and are things we should all do addictions notwithstanding just to be better humans in the universe. But is sobriety only found in GOD? what if someone is a Buddhist, or an atheist, does that mean that there is no hope for them?

THE TWELVE STEPS OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become
unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to
sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we
understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature
of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make
amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do
so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly
admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with
God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us
and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to
carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our
affairs.
Copyright A.A. World Services, Inc.